PayPal bans account belonging to journalist Ian Miles Cheong



The online financial company PayPal has permanently banned journalist Ian Miles Cheong from using its services. Cheong, a writer for the Post Millennial, reported the ban on Twitter Tuesday, writing that he was not given a specific reason why his account was shut down.

"PayPal just informed me that they have permanently banned my account," Cheong wrote. "Without giving an explicit reason why, the supervisor was extremely rude and implied that it had everything to do with my politics."

PayPal just informed me that they have permanently banned my account. Without giving an explicit reason why, the supervisor was extremely rude and implied that it had everything to do with my politics.
— Ian Miles Cheong @ stillgray.substack.com (@Ian Miles Cheong @ stillgray.substack.com) 1641351797

In follow-up tweets, Cheong said PayPal would not tell him which specific rules his account violated.

"They gave me a lecture on how they can’t reveal which rule I broke and they mentioned how I was a journalist and how it’s the same as not revealing sources," Cheong wrote. "When I asked if it was about my politics, they implied that it was and how they 'remain neutral' on such things."

After some Twitter users accused him of lying about the ban, Cheong posted a screenshot of a message he received from PayPal, informing him that his account was "permanently limited" for allegedly violating the company's Acceptable Use Policy.

"After a review of your account activity, we've determined that you're in violation of PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy. As a result, your account has been permanently limited and you won't be able to conduct any further business using PayPal," the notice said.

The message said that any funds he held in his PayPal account are frozen and will be held by PayPal for up to 180 days.

PayPal did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The company's Acceptable Use Policy prohibits transactions that relate to "the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory," as well as any sort of illegal transactions.

Following the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, PayPal took action against several accounts belonging to individuals alleged to have participated in the riot. At a virtual event hosted by Fortune magazine last year, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman said that these individuals violated the company's "acceptable use policy," which means "they can't advocate violence, hatred, or racial intolerance."

Schulman said that navigating "the fine line between what is hatred and what is free speech and who do we allow to fundraise using PayPal or Venmo, and who don’t we ...” is “one of the hardest things that we have to do.”

He also emphasized his commitment to enforcing that policy.

“Once you go down the path and say, ‘This is what we stand for,’ you have to live up to that every single day, even if it becomes quite uncomfortable, even if it results in a ton of different death threats, which we have all the time,” Schulman said.

In the past, PayPal has taken action to ban the accounts of conservative organizations that were labeled "hate groups" by left-wing organizations. In 2017, PayPal restricted the accounts belonging to Jihad Watch and the American Freedom Defense Initiative, before restoring those accounts after backlash.

Wisconsin school district faces lawsuit after reportedly saying they would use male name and male pronouns for female student despite parents' demands otherwise



A Wisconsin school district is facing a lawsuit after staff reportedly said they would use a male name and male pronouns for a female student despite her parents' objections.

What are the details?

According to a Wednesday report from the Post Millennial, the parents of a 12-year-old female student are suing the Kettle Moraine School District for violating the constitutional rights of the student's parents by vowing to call her by the incorrect name and pronouns.

The outlet reported that an unnamed 12-year-old student within the district reportedly "began to experience significant anxiety and depression, and also began questioning her gender."

The student's mental health woes began to grow to the point that she required sessions at a mental health center "where she could process what she was experiencing."

"But instead of helping her work through her questions about her gender, the center quickly 'affirmed' that she was really a transgender boy and encouraged her to transition to a male identity," the suit added.

Following the recommendations, the child reportedly prepared for her return to school and announced that she wanted to be referred to with a male name and corresponding pronouns.

Several days before the young girl was to return to school, her parents emailed the school guidance counselor and said that they wanted administrators, teachers, and staff to continue referring to the child by her legal name and regard her with correct biological pronouns.

Two days later, school Principal Michael Comiskey phoned the child's parents and told them that district policy prohibited administrators from complying with the parents' request and told them that they would refer to the child in whatever manner the child saw fit.

In light of the school's decision, the parents were forced to pull their child from the district while the family began seeking out a more appropriate educational venture for their daughter.

The child's mental and emotional condition reportedly continued to decline during the period after withdrawing from school, and she was said to have changed her mind "about wanting to transition to a male identity, deciding instead that she wanted to continue using her birth name and female pronouns."

What do we know about the suit?

The suit, filed in the Waukesha County Circuit Court by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty and Alliance Defending Freedom, alleged that the district infringed on the parents' constitutional rights by interfering in their family decisions.

Court documents obtained by the Daily Signal state that the suit "seeks to vindicate one of the most fundamental constitutional rights every parent holds dear: the right to raise their children."

"The Kettle Moraine School District has violated this foundational right by undermining and overriding parents' decision-making role with respect to a major and controversial issue," documents added.

The suit continued, "Specifically, the District has adopted a policy to allow, facilitate, and 'affirm' a minor student's request to transition to a different gender identity at school — without parental consent and even over the parents' objection."

The suit also argued that the district effectively jumped the shark by automatically "affirming" the child's gender dysphoria and sought to encourage it by referring to the child with opposite pronouns.

"[The child] expressed to her mother that 'affirmative care really messed me up,' explaining that the rush to affirm that she was really a boy added to her confusion and fueled anger towards her mother, but after taking more time to process her feelings, she realized her mother had been right to slow down the decision to transition," the lawsuit added.

Anything else?

Kate Anderson, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, told the Daily Signal that such policies are inherently dangerous because they permit schools to encourage children to "begin transitioning into a gender identity that isn't in accord with their biological sex."

What's worse, Anderson added, is that teachers and administrators don't inform the parents of the child's decision, and "in many cases lie to the parents affirmatively about what their student is doing at school."

"When schools are blocking parents from basic information about their child's healthcare, that prevents parents from doing what's best for their kids and what, constitutionally, they have every right to do to direct the upbringing of their children," Anderson added.

Washington public school requires student-athletes to wear ankle monitors to ensure social distancing, track COVID-19 outbreaks



Eatonville High School in Eatonville, Washington, is reportedly requiring its student-athletes to wear ankle monitors as a condition of participating in team sports, the Post Millennial reported.

What are the details?

One unnamed mother told the Post Millennial that her daughter had only just arrived at volleyball team practice when she received a text message revealing that the team coach was asking her child to put on an ankle monitor.

"The teen did not answer the mother's follow up texts or calls," the outlet's Ari Hoffmann wrote. "The mother assumed she was playing during practice and attempted to contact the school via phone. No one at the school was able to answer her questions about the monitor, so she drove to the building."

When she arrived at the school, the mother said that she encountered an employee in the school office, who reportedly told her that there was a meeting held the previous week discussing the "ankle monitoring program."

The program, the staffer reportedly told the mother, was intended for contact tracing in the event of any student's positive COVID-19 test.

The coach also reportedly told the mother that use of the device was intended to inform players when they were not distanced enough, and was only reportedly intended for use at indoor practice. The coach also added that the school reportedly handed out opt-out forms during the previous week's meeting, but the unnamed mom said that she never received any such forms, nor was she ever made aware of such a program.

According to the outlet, the device used by the school was reportedly manufactured by a company called Triax. The company website states that the monitoring bracelet was conceived in order to maintain social distancing guidelines. The device, according to the outlet, provides a "visual and audible alarm" so that any individual, who may come into unnecessarily close contact with another person, will "know when to adjust their current distance to a proper social distance."

EXCLUSIVE: Washington public school forces unvaccinated teens to wear ankle monitors@thehoffather for… https://t.co/J9LlmWFljJ

— libby emmons (@libbyemmons) 1629811936.0

The devices, according to the outlet, were not mentioned in the school's updated 2021-22 school year policies.

Parent Jason Ostendorf is also angry over the practice.

He told the News Tribune that students have enough to deal with these days amid a global pandemic.

"It's just one more thing they're doing to the kids through this whole COVID thing," he insisted. "The vaccine, now be tracked when you're at practice. Where does this end? I feel like this is an experiment on our kids to see how much we can put them through before they start breaking."

Ostendorf added that he was told if he refused to sign the permission slip, his children would not be permitted to play on team sports.

"My son has played football since he was in third grade," he said. "He's passionate about the sport. ... I signed it reluctantly. It's either that or he doesn't play. ... It's not optional. If you don't sign the waiver, they don't get to play. You have no choice in the matter. ... Above all, they're putting tracking devices on my kid."

What now?

In a statement to the Post Millennial, school board director Matt Marshall told the outlet that the school has decided to stop using the devices "until proper procedures including community input and board approval process occur."

Eatonville School District Superintendent Gary Neal also spoke out about the controversy and said that the monitors were not intended to segregate the student population.

"We received grant funding (known as ESSER III) that specifically included provisions to support higher-risk athletic programs, and we used some of those funds to pay for athletic proximity monitors," Neal said.

"We are using these monitors for high contact and moderate indoor contact sports. The monitors are for both staff (coaches) and students on the field, regardless if they are vaccinated or unvaccinated. If a student or coach tests positive, we will have immediate information regarding athletes' and coaches' contacts, so we can more tightly determine who might need to quarantine," he continued, sharing the same language posted on the school's online FAQ page.

A spokesperson for the district told the Daily Dot that the program is "entirely opt-in" and requires signed permission slips from parents and that monitors are for vaccinated and unvaccinated students alike.

Trump orders end to 'un-American' critical race training of federal employees

In an executive cease and desist order, the Trump administration is cutting off taxpayer dollars that fund "critical race theory" and "white privilege" training of federal employees.
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thepostmillennial.com

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thepostmillennial.com

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